Coronavirus and the Price of Trump's Delusions: By Michelle Goldberg

 "This week brought a barrage of new evidence of how Trump’s assault on nonpartisan expertise has undermined America’s fight against coronavirus.  Over the last 3 1/2 years,  Americans accustomed themselves to a relentless, numbing barrage of lies from the federal government. In one sector after another, we’ve seen experts systemically purged and replaced with toadying apparatchiks. The few professionals who’ve kept their jobs have often had to engage in degrading acts of public obeisance more common to autocracies. Public policy has zigzagged according to presidential whim. Empirical reality has been subsumed to Trump’s cult of personality. But as long as the economy was decent and many of the crises Trump created were far away, the immediate costs of Trump’s narcissistic governance have  more psychic than material. That changed with the coronavirus."